Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about riches, destitution, debt and the uses and limits of money, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Owó is money, cowrie or coin or cash by turns as the currency changed under it, and ọrọ̀ is wealth or riches more broadly, property and standing together. This file collects forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs in which money and its absence are the subject: what money can buy and what it cannot, how the rich and the poor are treated differently by the people around them, what debt does to a person's carriage, and what happens to money in the hands of someone who does not know how to use it. The proverbs do not agree with each other. Some say money solves everything; others say character or wisdom outranks it. Both positions are current, and a Yorùbá speaker reaches for whichever the occasion calls for.
Most entries below are taken from Oyekan Owomoyela's digitised proverb collection The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yorùbá Proverb Treasury, hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which prints each proverb in standard orthography with full tone marking, followed by Owomoyela's own English translation and a bracketed usage note . Where a proverb is marked , the Yorùbá text and the idiomatic English are Owomoyela's, reproduced as printed.
A second block of entries, marked , is drawn directly from Owomoyela's print collection Yoruba Proverbs (Nebraska, 2005), specifically its "On material wealth" section (proverbs 2887-2946, pp. 284-288), via a full-text extraction of the book. That extraction has a known defect: the source PDF's embedded font did not always map correctly to Unicode, and many lines lost tone accents or, in the worst cases, entire letters. Every entry in this file has been checked character by character against that extraction and used only where the Yorùbá text is complete with no dropped letters; a large number of proverbs in that section were legible in English but corrupted in the Yorùbá and have been cut rather than guessed at. Where an entry's tone marking looked potentially incomplete even after this check, the notes field says so.
A third small block, marked , comes from Osoba's peer-reviewed article on the socio-pragmatic functions of Yorùbá proverbs, based on field collection at Ile-Ife, which prints Yorùbá in apostrophe-based orthography without tone marks throughout . Those entries are reproduced exactly as printed, untoned, and flagged as such.
The literal line in each record is by the compiler of this corpus, working from the printed Yorùbá and separating out the metaphor that the idiomatic rendering smooths. Where the compiler's literal reading and the source's idiomatic rendering pull in different directions, the notes field says so.
Literal: Òrìṣà bí ajé a-god like wealth ò sí does-not exist; ajé wealth ní ńgbéni ga is-what elevates-one high.
Idiomatic: "There is no god like money; it is money that makes people great."
Meaning: Wealth is treated as the most powerful force available to a person, ranked above the òrìṣà themselves.
Used when: Said, often with some irony, when money has visibly settled a matter that argument or status could not.
Notes: The comparison to òrìṣà is deliberate escalation, not casual hyperbole: it places money in the category of things served and appealed to. Owomoyela's own gloss is blunt: "Money can accomplish anything" Compare entry 6, which makes the identical claim about problems specifically.
Literal: Owó money lorí ràn is-the-head-of a-matter; bówó bá dénú ràn if-money arrives-inside a-matter, yíyọ ní ńyọ a-solution is-what emerges.
Idiomatic: "Money is the head of any problem; when money is introduced into a problem, its solution results."
Meaning: Money is the decisive variable in resolving difficulties.
Used when: Said of a dispute or predicament that was going nowhere until funds were offered.
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote explains the idiom yọ orí, literally "pull the head out," as the ordinary Yorùbá expression for solving a problem, so the proverb is built on a pun between the "head" of the matter and the "extraction" that resolves it . That wordplay does not survive translation.
Literal: Owó ní money says bí nkò sin lé if-I-am-not at-home, kẹ́ni kẹ́ni má daba lẹ́hìn own let-no-one plan behind me.
Idiomatic: "Money says, 'if I am not at home let no one deliberate in my absence.'"
Meaning: No decision of consequence proceeds without money being consulted first.
Used when: Cited to establish that money's importance is beyond dispute, in the way an elder's presence is required before a matter can be settled .
Notes: Osoba prints the Yorùbá without tone marks, in apostrophe orthography ("own" for what would be òun, "him/it/self"), and it is reproduced here exactly as printed . The personification of money as a household head whose absence halts deliberation is a distinct rhetorical move from entry 2's more abstract claim, and Osoba's discussion frames it as evidence that money is "highly valued" and given praise-names in Ife usage . This is a variant of Owomoyela's Owó ní nígbà tí òun ò sí nílé, ta ní ńdámọ̀ràn lẹ́hìn òun?, "Money asked, when it was not at home, who dared to make plans in its absence?" , attesting to the same proverb surviving in both a full-book collection and independent field collection decades apart.
Literal: Owó money lọjà is-the-market.
Idiomatic: "Money is trade."
Meaning: Trade cannot happen without money to conduct it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "There is no trading in the absence of money"
Notes: Three words, no verb, the tightest possible statement of the claim. Compare entry 18 below, which makes a related point about goods that will not sell.
Literal: A kì í fi owó one does-not use money du oyè-e alágbára to-contest a-title-of-the-strong.
Idiomatic: "One does not rely on money to contest a chieftaincy reserved for the strong."
Meaning: Some positions are earned by strength or merit that money cannot substitute for.
Used when: Owomoyela's note states the general principle directly: "Money won't buy everything"
Notes: This proverb qualifies the sweeping claims of entries 1 and 2 from within the same collection: money is powerful, but a specific class of achievement, here a title reserved for physical or martial strength, is named as outside its reach.
Literal: Ọ̀ràn gbogbo every matter, lórí-i ṣílè on-the-head-of a-shilling ní ńdá sí is-what it-resolves-into.
Idiomatic: "All matters resolve themselves around a shilling."
Meaning: Whatever the dispute, money is what settles it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Money solves all problems" , the same claim as entry 2 in a different idiom.
Notes: Owomoyela dates this proverb to the colonial-era British currency, since the shilling is named explicitly . That the collection preserves two independent sayings making the identical claim, one keyed to the shilling and one to money in the abstract, suggests the sentiment is old and the coin-name is a later skin on it.
Literal: Owó money la fi ńfíná owó is-what-we use to-light-a-fire-for money; bí ẹgbẹ̀rún bá so lókè if a-thousand grows on-a-branch above, igbió la fi ńká a two-hundred is-what-we use to-pluck it.
Idiomatic: "Money is what one uses to kindle the fire for money; if a thousand cowries grow from the branches above, one uses two hundred cowries to pluck them."
Meaning: Making money requires spending money first.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Without some expenditure there can be no profit"
Notes: The image of cowries growing on a branch like fruit, requiring other cowries to harvest, states an economic principle as a piece of orchard work, which is characteristic of how these proverbs domesticate abstractions.
Literal: Owó money la fi ńlògbà is-what-we use to-secure pleasures; ọgbọ́n wisdom la fi ńgbélé ayé is-what-we use to-hold-a-good life.
Idiomatic: "It is with money that we secure pleasures; it is with wisdom that one secures a good life."
Meaning: Money buys enjoyment; wisdom secures the more durable thing.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Riches are desirable, but wisdom is more valuable"
Notes: This proverb ranks wisdom above money, in direct tension with entries 1 and 2 above, which rank money above everything. Both positions are current in the same collection, and neither cancels the other; a speaker reaches for the one that fits the occasion.
Literal: Ẹ̀ní lówó whoever has-money kó ṣe bí ọba let-them act like a-king; àrà wo what feat lahún fẹ́ fi owó dá? would-a-miser want to use money to-perform?
Idiomatic: "Whoever has riches should act like a king; what kind of feat can a miser perform with money?"
Meaning: The point of wealth is to spend it well; hoarding it wastes the point.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The best thing to do with wealth is to use it to live well"
Notes: Àrà, a feat or marvel, sets up the miser's inaction as a kind of failed performance: he has the means to accomplish something remarkable and produces nothing. See entries 35 through 38 below on spending and stinginess more directly.
Literal: Ẹ̀ní mọ owó-ó lò whoever knows money to-use lowó ḿbá gbé is-who money stays-with.
Idiomatic: "It is the person who knows how to use wealth that wealth attaches to."
Meaning: Wealth is retained by skill in using it, not merely by acquiring it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note states the proverb directly: "Wealth attaches only to those who know how to use it"
Notes: Gbé, to stay or dwell, treats money as something with its own preference for where it lodges, consistent with the personification of money seen in entries 3 and elsewhere in this file.
Literal: Òṣì poverty ní ńjẹ́ is-what says "Ta ní mọ̀ ọ́ rí?" "who has ever known you?" Owó ní ńjẹ́ money is-what says "Mo bá ọ tan." "I am your relation."
Idiomatic: "Poverty is what explains 'Who knows you?' Wealth explains, 'I am related to you.'"
Meaning: Poverty produces social invisibility; wealth manufactures kinship claims that did not previously exist.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No one knows a poor person, but everybody claims kinship to a rich person"
Notes: This proverb is also quoted, in untoned form, by Osoba, whose informants gloss it: "Poverty and money are personified in this proverb. Nobody wishes to befriend poverty, but everybody likes a relationship with money" The two independent attestations, one from a full-book scholarly collection and one from Ile-Ife field recording decades later, agree closely on wording, which is good evidence the proverb is both old and geographically widespread.
Literal: Olówó the-rich-person lará mọ̀ is-whom kin acknowledges; ará ò mọ ìṣẹ́ kin does-not acknowledge poverty; èrò tí ò lówó the-wayfarer who has-no-money, ará fa ìwé rẹ̀ ya kin tears his papers.
Idiomatic: "Kin acknowledges only the rich; no kin claims a poverty-ridden person; the wayfarer who has no money for kin rips up his papers."
Meaning: Family recognition follows wealth, not blood alone.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everybody associates with a rich person, but nobody knows a poor person"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote explains that "to rip up one's papers" is an idiom meaning to ruin one's own fortunes, so the destitute traveller is shown actively destroying what credentials he had left . Read against entry 11, the two proverbs make the same accusation about kinship and money from different angles.
Literal: Olówó the-rich-person layé mọ̀ is-whom the-world acknowledges.
Idiomatic: "Humankind knows only the rich."
Meaning: Recognition in the world is reserved for the wealthy.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The poor do not count in this world"
Notes: The compression to four words states as bare fact what entries 11 and 12 dramatise; the three form a tight cluster on the same complaint, and their repetition across the collection suggests it was a common one.
Literal: Ẹ̀ni tí iṣẹ́ ńpa-á one-whom work is-killing yá ju is-better-than ẹni tí ìṣẹ́ ńpa one-whom poverty is-killing lọ surpassing.
Idiomatic: "A person dying from overwork is better than a person dying of destitution."
Meaning: Death from exertion is preferable to death from want.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Better to succumb to overwork or occupational hazards than to succumb to poverty"
Notes: The proverb turns on the near-homophony of iṣẹ́ (work) and ìṣẹ́ (poverty, destitution), differing only in tone, which is exactly the kind of tonal pun that disappears in translation and that a reader of the literal gloss alone would miss. Compare entry 40 below, which makes the identical ranking in different wording.
Literal: Ìṣẹ́ tó ṣẹ́ ọmọ lógún ọdún poverty that has-afflicted a-child for-twenty years, ìyà tó jẹ ọmọ lọ́gbọ̀n oṣù suffering that has-plagued a-child for-thirty months, bí kò pa ọmọ if it-does-not kill the-child, a sì lẹ́hìn ọmọ it-should leave the-child.
Idiomatic: "The poverty that has plagued a child for twenty years, the suffering that has been the fate of a child for thirty months, if it does not kill the child it should leave the child in peace."
Meaning: Prolonged hardship, if it has not destroyed a person, has run its course and ought to end.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Perseverance puts an eventual end to all suffering"
Notes: The mismatched time spans, twenty years against thirty months, are not an error; they set two different kinds of affliction (chronic poverty, acute suffering) side by side without forcing them onto the same clock, and the proverb's logic works on both regardless.
Literal: Bí ẹkẹ́-ẹ tálákà if the-forked-stake of-a-poor-person ò tó lówùúrọ̀ is-not long-enough in-the-morning, á tó lálẹ́ it-will-be long-enough at-night.
Idiomatic: "If a poor person's forked stake is not long enough in the morning, it will be long enough at night."
Meaning: What is rejected while there is a choice becomes acceptable once there is none.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The things one rejects when the choice is abundant will become acceptable when there is no choice"
Notes: The forked stake is a specific piece of farm or house equipment, and its function does not change between morning and night; only the poor person's tolerance for its shortcomings changes as the day's options narrow.
Literal: Ìṣẹ́ ò mú ọkọláyà poverty does-not afflict the-husband kó má ran ọmọ and-not spread to-the-child; akúṣẹ́ the-poverty-ridden-person kì í ní ará does-not have relatives.
Idiomatic: "Destitution does not afflict the husband and spare his children; the poverty-ridden person does not have relatives."
Meaning: Poverty is collective within a household but isolating socially: it spreads to dependents and repels kin at the same time.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The destitution of the head of the household affects all members of the household; on the other hand, the poor person does not have many friends"
Notes: The proverb makes two distinct claims joined by contrast, one about the internal spread of poverty within a family and one about its external effect on relationships, and Owomoyela's usage note is careful to separate them rather than collapsing the sentence into a single point.
Literal: Ọjà tí ò tà goods that do-not sell, owó ló ńwá it-is-money it-is-seeking.
Idiomatic: "Goods that will not sell are only in need of money."
Meaning: Unsold merchandise is not necessarily unwanted; it may simply be waiting on a buyer who has the funds.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "All things are possible if there is money"
Notes: The proverb reframes what looks like a judgement on the goods (nobody wants them) as a judgement on the market (nobody currently has the money), which shifts blame away from the seller.
Literal: Owó ò sí money is-absent, èèyàn ò sunwọ̀n a-person is-not attractive.
Idiomatic: "[If] money is lacking, a person is unattractive."
Meaning: Without money a person's appeal diminishes in the eyes of others.
Used when: Owomoyela's note is unambiguous: "Wealth is beauty"
Notes: This sits in open contradiction with the whole run of proverbs elsewhere in the corpus asserting that character, not money or looks, is what matters; see owe-iwa-character entry 14, "Ẹni tó lówó tí kò níwà, owó olówó ló ní," which insists wealth without character does not really belong to its holder. Both proverbs are attested in Owomoyela's collection and neither is presented as more authoritative than the other.
Literal: Olówó jẹun jẹ́jẹ́ the-rich-person eats slowly-slowly; òtòṣì jẹun tìpà-tìjàn the-poor-person eats with-anxious-haste; òtòṣì tí ḿbá ọlọ́rọ̀ rìn a-poor-person who walks-with a-wealthy-person, akọ ojú ló ńyá excessive audacity is-what he-is-displaying.
Idiomatic: "The rich man eats slowly and at leisure; the poor person eats fast and with anxiety; the poor man who keeps company with a wealthy man is exceeding his station."
Meaning: Manner of eating marks class, and crossing class lines in company is read as presumption.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should keep to comrades whose station is similar to one's own"
Notes: The observation about eating speed is treated as a real, visible marker of station, not a metaphor, before the proverb generalises to companionship. Compare entry 21, which states the companionship rule alone without the eating detail.
Literal: Olówó ní ḿbá ọlọ́rọ̀-ọ́ rìn it-is-a-rich-person who walks-with a-wealthy-person; ẹgbẹ́ ní ḿbá ẹgbẹ́ ṣeré it-is-a-peer who plays-with a-peer.
Idiomatic: "It is a rich person that keeps company with a wealthy person; only people of equal standing play together."
Meaning: Social mixing follows economic standing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should associate with one's equals"
Notes: Ẹgbẹ́, age-set or peer group, is a real Yorùbá social institution, not a loose figure of speech, so the second clause is not simply repeating the first in different words; it grounds the claim in an actual structure of association.
Literal: Olówó the-rich-person ní ńjẹ iyán ẹgbàá is-who eats pounded-yam worth-two-thousand-cowries.
Idiomatic: "It is a rich person that eats pounded yams worth two thousand cowries."
Meaning: Consumption scales with means.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's level of consumption is a reflection of the depth of one's pocket"
Notes: Ẹgbàá, two thousand cowries, is a specific and large sum in the cowrie-currency reckoning that dates the proverb's imagery to the pre-colonial or early colonial monetary system, even though the underlying observation about consumption and means remains current.
Literal: Owó ẹ̀yẹ money-for-glory ò sú ẹni-í san does-not weary a-person to-pay; tọ̀ràn money-for-trouble ni ò súnwọ̀n is what-is-not pleasant.
Idiomatic: "People have no difficulty paying the money for glorious events; it is the money for trouble that is unpleasant to pay."
Meaning: Money spent on celebration feels different from money spent extricating oneself from difficulty, even when the sums are the same.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The troubles one goes into for honorable purposes are really a pleasure, not so the trouble to extricate oneself from problems"
Notes: The proverb draws a psychological distinction the accounting ledger does not: both are expenditures, but only one carries social reward attached to it.
Literal: Ọmọdé ní ẹẹ́ta lọ́wọ́ a-child has three-cowries in-hand, ó ní kí Èṣù wá he says let-Èṣù come ká ṣeré owó that-we play a-money-game; ẹẹ́ta-á ha tó will-three suffice Èṣùú sú epo lá? for-Èṣù to-buy palm-oil to-lick?
Idiomatic: "A child has three cowries in hand and challenges Èṣù to a game played for money; will three solitary cowries suffice for Èṣù to purchase palm-oil to lick?"
Meaning: A person newly in possession of a small sum overestimates what it can accomplish, even against a serious opponent.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People who come into some money for the first time are wont to overestimate their sudden worth"
Notes: Èṣù is invoked here as an ordinary formidable gambling opponent rather than in any ritual sense, which is a common secular use of divine names in these proverbs. The child's three cowries against Èṣù's presumed wealth is the whole joke.
Literal: Owó olówó the-money of-a-rich-person leégún ńná is-what the-masquerader spends.
Idiomatic: "Other people's money is what the masquerader spends."
Meaning: The showy spender is often spending resources that are not his own.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The parasitic person always relies on other people's largesse"
Notes: The egúngún masquerade is funded communally and by the lineage it represents, so the image is not an insult invented for the proverb; it accurately describes how a masquerade's costume and performance are financed, which the proverb then applies to any person living off others' generosity.
Literal: Ọ̀dájú boldness, brazenness ló bí owó is-what-birthed money; ìtìjú excessive-shyness ló bí gbèsè is-what-birthed debt.
Idiomatic: "It is brazenness that gives birth to wealth; it is excessive reticence that gives birth to poverty."
Meaning: Boldness in pursuing gain produces wealth; excessive diffidence produces debt.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Nothing succeeds without some audaciousness"
Notes: The proverb pairs owó (money) against gbèsè (debt) rather than against poverty directly, which sharpens the claim: timidity does not merely fail to enrich, it actively produces liabilities.
Literal: Owó the-money tọ́mọdé bá kọ́kọ́ ní that a-youth first has, àkàrà bean-fritters ní ńfi-í rà is-what he-uses-it to-buy.
Idiomatic: "The first money a youth comes into he spends on bean fritters."
Meaning: A young person's first money is typically spent on something small and immediate rather than invested.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The youth seldom know how to manage their wealth"
Notes: Àkàrà is a cheap, everyday snack, chosen precisely because it is the least consequential thing money could be spent on, which is the point.
Literal: A kì í fi gbèsè sọ́rùn one does-not put debt around-the-neck ṣọ̀ṣọ́ dress-up-fashionably.
Idiomatic: "One does not carry debt around one's neck and live like a dandy."
Meaning: Extravagant display is unseemly in a person who owes money.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should discharge one's obligations before one indulges in extravagance"
Notes: Sọ́rùn, around the neck, treats debt as a physical burden literally worn on the body, an image that recurs across several proverbs in this cluster.
Literal: A kì í kó èlé one does-not gather interest-on-a-loan ṣẹ̀ṣọ́ dress-fashionably.
Idiomatic: "One does not live fashionably on borrowed money."
Meaning: Style financed by debt is improper.
Used when: Owomoyela's note is a plain instruction: "Live within your means"
Notes: Èlé specifically names interest accrued on a loan, not the principal, which sharpens the criticism: the fashion is being paid for by the cost of borrowing itself, not even the borrowed sum.
Literal: À-wín-ná-wó borrowing-money-to-spend ò yẹni does-not become-one; à-gbà-bọ̀-ọ ṣòkòtò borrowed trousers ò yẹ ọmọ èèyàn does-not become a-person; bí kò fúnni lẹ́sẹ̀ if it-does-not fit-one at-the-leg a dòrògí it-becomes difficult-to-remove; ohun ẹni one's-own thing ní ńyẹni is-what becomes-one.
Idiomatic: "Borrowing-money-to-spend does not speak well of one; borrowed trousers do not become a person; if it is not tight around the legs it is difficult to remove; it is one's thing that fits one."
Meaning: What is borrowed never fits as well as what is one's own, whether money or clothing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not live beyond one's means"
Notes: The chain of compressed nominals (à-wín-ná-wó, à-gbà-bọ̀-ọ) packs a whole clause into a single hyphenated noun, a construction this corpus notes elsewhere as characteristic of Yorùbá proverb formation and difficult to render in English without the hyphens.
Literal: Ò báà kúrú whether-one-be short, ò báà párí whether-one-be bald, gbèsè ò sí if-debt is-absent, ẹ̀sín ò sí ridicule is-absent; onígbèsè the-creditor ló lè fini ṣẹ̀sín is-who-alone can make-one an-object-of-ridicule.
Idiomatic: "One may be diminutive, and one may be bald, but without debt one has not earned ridicule; only one's creditor has grounds to make fun of one."
Meaning: Physical shortcomings do not expose a person to mockery, but unpaid debt does.
Used when: Owomoyela: "However much one might be devoid of accomplishments, as long as one stays out of debt one's dignity is intact"
Notes: A close variant, Èèyàn ìbáà kúrú, ìbáà búrẹ́wà, gbèsè ò sí, ìtìjú ò sí ("Whether a person be short or ugly, if there is no debt, there can be no disgrace"), appears elsewhere in the same collection with near-identical structure but ìtìjú (shame) in place of ẹ̀sín (ridicule), which suggests this proverb circulated in more than one fixed wording .
Literal: San là ńrìn straight is-how-we walk; ajé wealth (here: money, debt) ní ḿmúni pá kọ̀rọ̀ is-what forces-one to-sneak-about.
Idiomatic: "Straight and upright is the way one would walk; it is money that forces one to sneak about."
Meaning: A person's natural bearing is open; debt is what makes someone furtive.
Used when: Owomoyela: "When one is in debt, one's freedom of movement is compromised"
Notes: Ajé usually names wealth or good fortune, but in this proverb's usage note Owomoyela reads it as the pressure of debt specifically, an example of the same word carrying opposite valences (having money, owing money) depending on context, since both involve money's grip on a person's movements.
Literal: Arúgbó oǹdágbèsè an-old-person who-incurs-debt, ó ní he says mélòó ni òun óò dúró san níbẹ̀? how-much of-it will-he stay-around to-repay?
Idiomatic: "The old person who incurs debt, he says how much of it will he be around to pay?"
Meaning: Someone near the end of life reasons that a debt's long-term consequences will not fall on them.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person whose days are numbered can afford to freely take on long-term obligations"
Notes: The proverb reports a piece of cynical self-interested reasoning without endorsing it; it is descriptive of a temptation rather than advice to follow it.
Literal: Olówó á wá the-money-haver will-come; aláwìn á wá the-credit-buyer will-come; ìlú tí à ńgbé the-town where-we live la gbé ńgbàwìn is-where-we take-credit; à-rà-àì-san buying-without-paying ni ò súnwọ̀n is what-is-not good.
Idiomatic: "Those who have money will come, and those who will buy on credit will come; it is in one's town that one buys on credit; failure to eventually pay up is what is bad."
Meaning: Buying on credit within one's own town is an accepted practice; the fault lies only in never settling the debt.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is nothing bad about buying on credit, as long as one eventually pays"
Notes: The proverb pointedly separates the two categories of buyer, cash and credit, and treats both as equally legitimate customers at the outset, withholding judgement until the question of eventual repayment is raised in the closing clause.
Literal: Náwó-náwó one-who-spends-money-freely kì í ṣàpà is-not a-prodigal.
Idiomatic: "The big spender is not a prodigal."
Meaning: Spending one's own money freely is not the same fault as wastefulness.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is nothing wrong with spending one's money"
Notes: This proverb and the following two form a small cluster defending the free spender against the charge of prodigality, so long as the money being spent is genuinely their own; see entry 28 above, which condemns spending only when it is financed by debt.
Literal: Ọ̀mùtí the-drunkard kì í ṣàpà is-not a-prodigal; owó ẹ̀ his-own-money ló ńná is-what he-spends.
Idiomatic: "The drunkard is not a prodigal; it is his money that he is spending."
Meaning: Even a habit widely disapproved of, spending on drink, is not wastefulness if the money is one's own.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One can spend one's money as one wishes"
Notes: The proverb defends the drunkard on a narrow technical point, ownership of the funds, without defending drunkenness itself; it is a proverb about the category "prodigal," not an endorsement of drink.
Literal: Ohun tí ḿbá ahun náwó ẹ̀ the-thing that-will-help a-miser spend his-money ḿbẹ lápò-o ẹ̀ is right-in his-pocket.
Idiomatic: "What will help a miser spend his money is right there in his/her pocket."
Meaning: The miser's own money will eventually be taken from him, one way or another.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person who does not willingly share what he/she has will somehow find him/herself being deprived of it"
Notes: The proverb is ominous rather than comic: it predicts theft or loss as the mechanism that will finally make the miser spend, since he will not do it willingly.
Literal: Kò rà he does-not buy, kò lówó lọ́wọ́ he has-no money in-hand, ó ńwú tutu he sits swollen-and-sulky níwájú onítumpulu before the-seller-of-bean-fritters.
Idiomatic: "He does not buy, he has no money, yet he sits sulkily before the seller of bean fritters."
Meaning: Someone lingers, visibly resentful, near something they want but cannot afford.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said of people reluctant to accept the fact that they cannot have what they wish"
Notes: The ideophone-adjacent wú tutu, to swell up cold with sulking, is a physical description of pouting rather than a metaphor, and the scene is small and domestic: a snack stall, not a marketplace of high stakes.
Literal: "Ng óò gba owó-ò mi lára ṣòkòtò yìí" "I will get my money's worth out of these trousers," ìdí làgbàlagbà ńṣí sílẹ̀ his buttocks is-what the-old-man exposes.
Idiomatic: "'I will get my money's worth out of these trousers'; the grown man only winds up exposing his bare buttocks to the world."
Meaning: Insisting on wringing every last use out of a wearing-out possession ends in visible failure.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not insist on squeezing every last ounce of use out of a perishable article"
Notes: The image is comic and physical rather than abstract: false economy is shown, not argued for, by picturing exactly what happens to trousers worn past their useful life.
Literal: Ẹ̀ni ọ̀lẹ́ pa-á whoever laziness kills re ọ̀run òṣì goes-to a-heaven-of poverty; ẹni iṣẹ́ pa-á whoever work kills re ọ̀run ẹ̀yẹ goes-to a-heaven-of honour.
Idiomatic: "Whoever dies from poverty dies a miserable death; whoever dies from work dies a noble death."
Meaning: A death brought on by exertion carries more dignity than a death brought on by destitution.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Better to die on one's feet than to give in to reverses"
Notes: This is a variant of entry 14 above, phrased around laziness and destitution rather than overwork and poverty directly, and read together the two show the same ranking asserted in two independent wordings.
Literal: Ẹ̀ni tí ọ̀ṣọ́ bá wù whoever finery pleases kó ṣòwò let-them trade; ẹni ajé yalé-e rẹ̀ whoever wealth has-visited-the-home-of ló gbọ́n is-who-is wise.
Idiomatic: "Whoever likes fineries should engage in a trade; it is the person blessed by riches that is wise."
Meaning: A taste for nice things obliges a person to work for it, and success itself is treated as proof of wisdom.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Good things come only to the industrious"
Notes: The second clause is a stronger and separately debatable claim than the first: it makes wealth retroactive evidence of wisdom, a position several proverbs in owe-iwa-character explicitly reject when they insist character and wealth are unrelated or even opposed.
Literal: Kí á siṣẹ́ to work ká lówó lọ́wọ́ and have-money in-hand ò dàbí-i is-not like ká mọ̀-ọ ná to-know-how to-spend-it.
Idiomatic: "To work and make a great deal of money is nothing like knowing how to spend it."
Meaning: Earning money and using it well are two separate skills, and the second is not guaranteed by the first.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Riches are nothing if one does not know how to use the wealth"
Notes: This proverb states directly what entry 10 above states positively (wealth attaches to those who know how to use it), by way of contrast: earning it is a different, lesser accomplishment.
Literal: Ẹ̀ní fowó lògbà whoever uses-money to-secure-pleasure ló káyé já is-who lives-life properly.
Idiomatic: "It is the person who uses his/her money to enjoy life that lives well."
Meaning: The proper use of money is to enjoy one's life with it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Money is to be used to enjoy life"
Notes: Ká... já, to bring a matter to a proper conclusion, treats "living well" as an achievement with a definite endpoint rather than an open-ended state, consistent with how these proverbs tend to frame a good life as a task completed rather than a condition enjoyed.
Literal: Dúkìa tí a fi èrú kójọ wealth that one gathers with foul-means kò mú ká dolówó does-not make one-become truly-rich.
Idiomatic: "The treasure one gathers by foul means will not make one rich."
Meaning: Wealth obtained wrongfully does not produce lasting riches.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Wealth garnered by foul means does not last"
Notes: Dolówó, literally "become an owner-of-money," is distinguished here from merely accumulating property (dúkìa), so the proverb argues that possessing goods and truly becoming wealthy are not automatically the same thing when the goods were acquired dishonestly.
Literal: Igbá olóore the-calabash of-a-kind-person kì í fọ́ never breaks; àwo olóore the-china-plate of-a-kind-person kì í fàya never cracks; towó tọmọ both-money-and-children ní ńya ilé olóore is-what converges-on the-home of-a-kind-person.
Idiomatic: "The calabash of a kind-hearted person never breaks; the china plate of a kind-hearted person never cracks; both riches and children ever converge in the home of a kind-hearted person."
Meaning: Generosity is rewarded materially as well as morally.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Good always attends those who are good"
Notes: The proverb links kindness to wealth as cause and effect, which stands in some tension with entry 44's claim that ill-gotten wealth does not last; taken together they suggest the collection's view is not that wealth is neutral but that how it is acquired and how its owner behaves both matter to whether it holds.
The three proverbs in this section come from sources that print Yorùbá without tone marks. They are reproduced in that state. No diacritics have been supplied, because supplying them would supply a reading the source did not authorise.
Literal: Owó money lobìnrin-ín mọ̀ is-what-a-woman knows.
Idiomatic: "Women care only about money." (printed with tone marks in Owomoyela's excerpted text, but grouped here for its close kinship to the untoned entries below on the same theme).
Meaning: A sweeping claim that women's concerns reduce to money.
Used when: Owomoyela's own note: "Whatever women do they do only for money"
Notes: This proverb is included with a caution rather than an endorsement. It is one of a recognisable class of Yorùbá proverbs that generalise unfavourably about women specifically, with no equivalent proverb applying the same claim to men; owe-iwa-character and owe-family-lineage-compound both flag the same asymmetry elsewhere in the corpus and this file does the same rather than presenting the claim as settled description.
Literal: Osi poverty ni je is what-says 'tani mo ori?' "who knows [your] head/self?"; Owo money ni mje is what-says 'mo ba o tan' "I am your relation."
Idiomatic: "Poverty bears 'who knows you?' while money bears 'I am your relation.'"
Meaning: Poverty is met with feigned non-recognition; money is met with claimed kinship.
Used when: Osoba cites it as establishing money's social importance in Ile-Ife usage, alongside a praise-name for money, "Owo ape ka nu ko," glossed as "money which we have to call with a curved mouth," referring to the physical mouth-shape needed to pronounce the Yorùbá word for money .
Notes: This is a second, independently field-collected attestation of the same proverb given in fully toned form as entry 11 above (Owomoyela's Òṣì ní ńjẹ́ "Ta ní mọ̀ ọ́ rí?" Owó ní ńjẹ́ "Mo bá ọ tan."). Osoba's version is printed without any tone marks and in apostrophe orthography, and it is kept here in that state rather than silently merged with the toned version, since the two are independent records and the corpus does not assume they are letter-for-letter identical without tone evidence.
Literal: Eni ti o l'owo one who has-no-money to fe joye who wants a-chieftaincy-title, akobata ni yoo je a-shoe-carrier is-what he-will-become.
Idiomatic: "He who has no money but wants a chieftaincy title, it is 'chief shoe carrier' that he will become."
Meaning: Ambition for status without the money to support it results in a lesser, subordinate position rather than the title sought.
Used when: Osoba glosses it as showing how "everybody likes a relationship with money," using this proverb as the negative case: the moneyless aspirant to a title .
Notes: Akobata names a specific attendant role, one who carries the footwear of a titled chief, so the proverb's insult is precise: not simply "you will fail" but "you will become someone else's servant instead."
Three things stand out across these forty-eight proverbs that are not visible in any one of them.
Money is personified more than any other force in the corpus. It speaks (entries 3, 11, 47), it has a home it can be absent from, it "asks" and "explains," it chooses where to stay (entry 10). No other abstraction in this corpus, not even destiny or character, is given a voice this consistently. That grammatical choice is doing real philosophical work: treating money as an agent rather than a possession makes its pursuit a relationship rather than a transaction, which is exactly the register several of these proverbs use when they describe wealth "attaching" to a person or kin "acknowledging" the rich.
The collection argues with itself about whether money is everything. Entries 1, 2, 6 and 19 rank money above character, wisdom, and appearance outright. Entry 8 ranks wisdom above money in the same breath it grants money's power over pleasure. owe-iwa-character entry 14 states flatly that a rich person without character does not really own their wealth. None of these proverbs is marked in the source as more authoritative than the others, because none of them is meant as a general theory; each is a tool for a specific occasion, and a Yorùbá speaker who deploys one is not thereby committed to denying the others.
Poverty is treated as socially contagious in a way wealth is treated as socially adhesive. Entries 11 through 17 describe poverty spreading within a household and repelling everyone outside it, while wealth draws claimed kinship toward itself. The sourced material offers no proverb making the reverse claim, that the poor are drawn together in solidarity; whether that reflects the actual social experience the proverbs were coined to describe, or simply what the collectors were told and chose to record, is not something this file can settle.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about labour, the farm and the discipline of effort, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about the household, the lineage, the father's house and the obligations that follow from being born into a particular family.
Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about telling the truth, the mechanics of lying and self-deception, and the value placed on a person whose word is reliable.
Forty-three Yorùbá proverbs on sùúrù, patience, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.